


Three qunari walk into a bar

by kjollar



Series: Freedom's strange ways [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Act I, Gen, I actually like Seamus, M/M, Qunari Related Quests, Slight Canon Divergence, not that it shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3514823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjollar/pseuds/kjollar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you live in Kirkwall, there is just no escaping the qunari, even if neither you nor they want to become better acquainted.</p>
<p>Three interwoven incidents that laid the foundation of Terrance Hawke’s relationship with the qunari, as seen though Fenris’s (slightly partial) eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story mostly follows canonical events of Act I with slight deviations made for my pleasure and for the sake of future plot developments.  
> There will be three chapters total, which I hope to get out in a timely manner.

There was a certain charm to walking around Hightown in the mornings. Or maybe it was just vindictive enjoyment Fenris got out of all the scared and outraged looks thrown in his direction. Respected nobles and wealthy merchants were very much offended by sharing a street with some elf-scum that thought he was entitled to be there, but they didn’t have enough courage to do something about it, seeing that the aforementioned scum had a dangerous-looking greatsword while they were armored with only their own excessive fat. Perhaps later in the day they would have found safety in numbers, but in the first hours after dawn there were not enough of them to form a decent crowd. The servants, scurrying along the side-streets, looked at him as well, and in their eyes Fenris read a hefty bit of envy alongside the customary anger and fear. That too never failed to amuse him.  
None of them – neither masters, nor their valetry – had the strength to meet his challenging gaze, and that was, perhaps, the most pleasing thing of all. For far too long Fenris was a slave – no more worthy of notice that any inanimate object in Danarius’s household; and even after his escape he had struggled to continue that life of invisibility, until the day he realized that hiding forever was not much better than slavery. He enjoyed that those who would have overlooked him before now had no other choice but to pay attention.   
It was a rare day when something was more disturbing than a lyrium-marked elf with a sharp sword, so when a small group of gossips only glanced in his direction before returning to their previous lively conversation Fenris was understandably intrigued. When a second cluster of citizens ignored him completely, faint surprise transformed into full-blown curiosity, and Fenris lengthened his stride, heading to the market square – a most convenient place for eavesdropping.  
It didn’t escape his attention that all discussion centered around notices pasted on the walls, but the only information he could obtain from them – to his frustration – was the Viscount’s coat of arms. However, this fact didn’t prevent him from brazenly plucking one leaflet from the notice board; and when he _did_ find out what all the commotion was about, he concluded that it all had been definitely worth his attention.

Fenris had a general idea of where Hawke lived, since they had passed the place once (with some mildly disparaging comment from Aveline) on the way from _The Hanged Man_ to the Alienage. Now it took him a bit of wandering along the narrow streets, but he was finally knocking on the door that he was reasonably sure belonged to Terrance’s uncle.   
A grumpy, unkempt man that answered it looked him up and down with distaste, turned away and hollered: “There’s a knife-ear for you, nephew!” somehow transforming the word _nephew_ into a dirtiest curse. “The company you keep, I swear! And all that scum turning up at my door!”  
“And you are such a paragon of respectability, aren’t you?” came Bethany’s raised voice from somewhere inside, followed by – of all things – excited barking.  
“Fenris?” Hawke’s appearance at the door went unnoticed in the whole commotion. He was chewing something and looked surprised (and honestly pleased) to see the elf. “Sorry for Gamlen, he’s just–”  
But what exactly Hawke thought of his uncle’s behaviour was drowned out by another loud bark, and a mabari shouldered its way past the door, sniffed appraisingly and launched into a whole growling tirade.   
“No, you are not going for a walk with the nice elf,” Hawke answered patiently, as if he heard a real question instead of simple barking. The dog bared its teeth in an almost silent snarl.  
“Was I really referred to as _nice_?” Fenris asked, amused now despite previous irritation at Gamlen’s slur.  
“Anyone is nice compared to me, if you ask Dwyn,” Terrance shrugged, “though I can’t fault his taste in this particular instance. He was Carver’s, you know,” he made as if to pat the mabari and got snarled at again, “and inherited all the disdain his master held for me. It’s not my fault that you’ve been careless enough to walk into a trap, is it?” he asked the dog in a snidely reasonable tone, receiving a scornful bark in reply. “He still listens to Bethany though, so that’s a small consolation,” Hawke continued with a sad smile. Fenris had little opportunity to find out anything about the Hawke brother who died on the way to Kirkwall, but in was obvious that no matter how hard they clashed, Terrance was still grieved by this loss. “Bethany!” Terrance shouted into the shack, “tell the stupid mutt that he’s not going anywhere before his paw heals!”  
“Are _we_ going somewhere?” came his sister’s voice before she herself appeared at the door. “Hi, Fenris!” the elf nodded with a small smile.  
“I don’t know about going; the beast didn’t give us a chance to exchange so much as a greeting, much less get to the point of the visit.” Terrance sighed. “I apologize for not inviting you in, the atmosphere there is just not conductive to civility.”  
“What my brother means to say is that uncle can’t stand our presence in his home and swears up a storm when we disturb him,” Bethany supplied helpfully.  
“That’s all right,” Fenris answered her with a crooked grin, “you know I don’t put much stock in hospitality. As for the purpose of my visit,” he parroted Hawke’s wording, “I’ve heard some news that may be of interest to you,” and he held out the misappropriated note. Since it was the original source of information, Fenris decided it would be more effective than sharing his own secondhand knowledge.  
The fereldan scanned the lines quickly, shook his head and chuckled, passing the note to Bethany. “Look, sister, a chance to save a prince charming – this is right up your alley!”  
“Why?” she frowned, skimming the text and raising her brows in surprise.  
“Aren’t you always bemoaning the fact that girls never get any active roles in fairytales and have to quote-unquote _just sit on their pretty asses and wait to be rescued_? Now you can finally show them all how it is done!” Terrance’s enthusiasm wasn’t in the least bit hindered by his sister’s unimpressed stare. “You can even get a crown and a city-state out of it all!” he concluded cheerfully.  
“Oh, _now_ I get it! You just want to marry me off, don’t you?” Bethany poked him with a finger. “Why don’t _you_ save the prince instead? Political marriage is definitely more to your tastes than mine.”  
“I would prefer to find someone capable enough to get _himself_ out of captivity,” Hawke objected, “or cunning enough to not get caught in the first place.” Surprisingly, while Terrance was still mostly talking to his sister, his last words were followed by a sidelong glance and a conspiratorial smile at Fernis, who was silently enjoying the byplay. _Does it count,_ the elf wondered to himself, _if that someone uses_ you _in a ploy to dodge his captors?_  
Bethany, who seemed to never miss anything her brother was doing, also turned her attention to their silent observer. “What do you think, Fenris? Who should marry the prince?”  
“I think,” he answered with an emphasis on the word, “that it’s too early for matchmaking. Shouldn’t you at least save him first?”  
“Where would be the fun in that?” Bethany laughed. “So, we’re going?” she asked her brother, and after receiving an affirmative nod retreated into the house with an “I’m going to pack then.”  
“Setting aside future matrimonial plans,” Fenris said, seeing that Hawke was not yet joining his sister in getting ready for the trip, “I think that having the Viscount beholden to you for his son’s rescue could be very useful in your attempts to restore your family’s standing.”  
“Undoubtedly,” Terrance nodded, once again scanning the notice. “Thank you for brining in to my attention.”  
“It’s nothing. I’m sure Varric would have told you about it soon enough,” Fenris shrugged, secretly pleased. Hawke’s answering smile was equal parts warm and teasing, showing that he saw right through the façade of casual indifference. 

“Ah, Hawke! Just the man I was looking for!”  
Their little band of three, properly equipped and outfitted, was passing _The Hanged Man_ when they were hailed by the very same dwarf Fenris mentioned not so long ago. It was generally impossible to predict by Varric’s appearance alone whether the tales he intended to share were idle gossip or call to arms – he didn’t part with his trusty crossbow even on a night of drunken revelry and proudly displayed his chest-hair even when it would have been more prudent to don the armor – but today Fenris was ready to bet all his wine collection that the dwarf was bearing the same news he had already delivered.  
“God morning, Varric,” Hawke answered pleasantly. “You’re up early, I see.”  
“But not as early as you, obviously,” Varric looked the three of them over appraisingly. “Could it be that you already know the funny tale I was going to amuse you with?”  
“That depends,” Terrance answered musingly. “Does it concern the Viscount’s son?”  
Varric’s eyes, narrowed in suspicion, landed on Fenris. “Seems to me that someone’s trying to steal my place in our little operation.”  
“News travels fast,” the elf said innocently, “especially when it has longer stride.”  
“Oh, but it usually pays to slow down a little bit if you want all the juicy rumors to catch up to you,” Varric smirked. “You were going to the Viscount’s Keep, right? I can save you the trip: we should head to the Wounded Coast instead, that’s were Seamus was supposedly taken.”  
They obligingly turned in the specified direction. Varric’s information was unfailingly accurate and he was sure to know much more than any official source at the Keep would be willing to share.  
“So, what’s the story?” Bethany asked eagerly.  
“Well, Sunshine, _officially_ the Viscount’s boy was abducted sometime last night right out of the Keep, and was then seen being whisked away by a band of qunari. They are supposedly planing to use him as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with the Viscount.” Even without the dwarf’s emphasis Fenris would have been suspicious of the official version: kidnapping and bargaining had never been the way of the Qun, and the elf doubted that anything could have changed that.  
“Why not send some _official_ force to retrieve him then?” Hawke inquired.   
“Because the Viscount – or rather, seneschal Bran – is wary of making an already tense situation with the horned guests of our city worse, since the official version doesn’t have all that much solid proof to back it up,” Varric smirked. “But let’s not spread the vile rumors right in the middle of Lowtown, lest we besmirch the Viscount’s – or his son’s – honor.”  
The suggestion had some merit: not in the sense that the topic of their conversation should be kept secret – Fenris didn’t think that some noble’s life was all that important to Lowtown dwellers, even if that noble was Dumar’s son – but the streets were getting more and more busy, so it was easier to devote all attention to picking their way though thickening crowds instead of trying to keep up the conversation in the morning-town din. 

When the gates of Kirkwall were behind them, and the river of merchants and nearby villagers hurrying to start the day’s trading dwindled into a trickle, Varric, who for the past half-hour had been busy spinning a truly outrageous story about a hurlock and three drunken dwarfs for Bethany’s amusement, finally turned to serious matters once more.  
“This Seamus fellow turned out not at all how his father wanted,” he explained. “No interest in politics whatsoever and no desire to take his allotted position at court. It’s not unusual for him to leave the Keep for a time, and Dumar has already lost all hope of controlling these little escapades, so he’s just resigned to waiting them out. Not to mention, Seamus, being the spoilt brat that he is, generally returns home for supper.”  
“Can I exchange my problems for his?” Bethany asked hopefully.  
“Wasn’t that exactly what Hawke suggested earlier?” Fenris wondered aloud, adding an almost innocent smile when she looked back at him.  
“Oh, but it’s really not right for me to marry before my older brother,” she objected sweetly. “Unless he already has someone in mind?”  
“Please, Varric, do continue,” Terrance said, looking for all the world as if he hadn’t heard the exchange.  
“Hmm?” the dwarf had a speculative look on his face that promised he’d be definitely returning to the curious topic of Hawkes’ matrimonial plans at a later time. “Right, Seamus. So, he went for a walk some time last morning, and no one was worried until he didn’t return at night. All his usual haunts turned up empty, and by this morning the Viscount had no other choice but to declare him missing.”  
Hawke frowned. “And how qunari figure into all this?”  
“Apparently, someone _did_ see him in the company of qunari. Here’s the rub, though,” Varric paused for dramatic effect, “rumor has it, it was not the _first time_ this happened, and he was _not_ held against his will.”  
“He _wants_ to spend time with qunari?” Bethany exclaimed, appalled. “But! But they’re so–”  
“Big and scary?” Varric suggested when she seemed to be at a loss for words. “Tastes differ, Sunshine.”  
“The question should be: what _qunari_ would want to waste their time on him?” When three pairs of enquiring eyes turned to him, Fenris elaborated, “while this version does indeed sound more plausible, the qunari would not consider Seamus worthy of their attention, if what you say about him is true.”  
“What about political expediency?” Hawke suggested. “No matter what Seamus’s virtues are, he is still the Viscount’s son.”  
“That would mean nothing to the qunari,” the elf shrugged, “they care little for social standing.”  
“Be that as it may,” Varric said, although he didn’t sound as if he entirely believed Fenris’s words, “that’s the only halfway decent lead we have. Or rather, that’s what seneschal Bran tells all the eager would-be rescuers. No harm in checking it out before starting investigation from scratch.”   
Hawke nodded; but then shook his head dejectedly. “No matter how I look at it, it’s still a fundamentally idiotic way of handling the situation. The Viscount as good as admits that the city guard is useless. Why promise a reward and invite all and sundry instead of making discreet enquiries and dispatching a small well-trained taskforce? Or does he think the situation will grow less tense if the qunari are attacked by all the riff-raff who want to get their reward for rescuing Seamus?”  
“Well, get to Seamus first, and you also help the Viscount save face,” Varric concluded cheerfully. “But honestly, this is by far not the first time old Dumar demonstrated his – _ahem_ – unique grasp of politics.”  
Unlike Hawke, Fenris wasn’t all that interested in the Viscount’s pervious mistakes, so he fell back a bit while still listening to Varric’s accounts and Hawke’s questions with half an ear. The story of Seamus’s disappearance (it was equally wrong to call it abduction or escape) was very unclear, but it was unlikely that anyone other than the young man himself could shed light on the situation. Meanwhile, it provided a convenient excuse for a pleasant morning stroll along the seashore – according to Bethany, who had also dropped back after a while, growing tired of political talk – and a prospect of a fight, which, while not so pleasant in comparison, was still quite exciting.   
“You shouldn’t sound so bloodthirsty if you want to maintain an image of a nonthreatening, law-abiding mage,” Fenris noted mildly.  
“My image, I’ll have you know, is perfectly maintained!” she objected heatedly. “I’m staying cooped up in our Lowtown hovel for days at a time without so much as a spark on my fingertips! No magic anywhere inside the city walls, no carrying my staff unless it’s in the dead of night and brother absolutely can’t take Anders or Merrill with him instead, no lighting my stupid uncle’s stupid goatee on fire no matter what filth he spews! Urgh! Can you blame a girl for needing an outlet for her frustrations?”  
“Have you considered embroidery to occupy your time?” the elf suggested mildly. “I hear it’s all the rage among the nobility.”  
“Hmm…” Bethany pretended to ponder the topic. “Maybe I should. I could poison my needles and use them to stab those who try to be funny at me.”  
“And that way you will only have to deal with city guard instead of templars,” Fenris agreed readily, “so it’s win-win.”  
“You’re in a good mood today, aren’t you?” Bethany turned to him more fully, as if trying to divine the cause of his cheerfulness though visual inspection.  
“It seems that I am,” he answered quite honestly.  
To tell the truth, Fenris agreed with the mage’s earlier reasoning – he was itching for a good fight himself, and its prospect was already lifting his spirits. His own voluntary reclusion, while it had given him a sense of security in the beginning, was now starting to grate on his nerves. What did it say about him that his only source of entertainment lately was scaring rich idiots into running to the other side of the street?  
Perhaps it was time to use his not inconsiderable talents for something more practical? There was always a need for hired swords, even inside the supposedly safe city walls, and coin would not go amiss in furthering his plans of safeguarding himself against slave-hunters.  
Or maybe, he thought with a speculative glance at the broad back of their de-facto leader, he should simply let Hawke know that he won’t mind being invited along more often. Wherever Terrance went, there was never a shortage of excitement as well as profit. And the company was… pleasantly friendly, which was also a factor in his good mood. Fenris hadn’t had friends before, but he was reasonably sure that’s what his relationship with the Hawkes and Varric should be called. (He would not have been quite so hasty to call others in Hawke’s motley crew friends, but he was prepared to make some _small_ concessions for the sake of peacekeeping – and seeing Hawke’s smile, but that was, of course, secondary).

“Halt!”   
The sudden exclamation worked as intended, making all four of them stop and jerk their heads upwards, trying to find its source among the rock outcroppings. “There is an ambush up ahead,” the same voice continued helpfully.  
“Who are you?” Hawke asked. “Why would you warn us?”  
“Better yet, why should we believe you?” added Fenris, coming closer to the other half of their little group.   
“It is, of course, your right to disregard my words. I have warned you – you can make of it what you wish.” The speaker finally chose to reveal himself – although he was not really hiding before. The play of light and shadows, coupled with his coloring and a lack of distinctive markings, combined to conceal him from a passing glance.  
“You’re a qunari!” Bethany cried out in surprise.  
“No. I am what they call tal-vashoth, as are those who lay in wait further along this trail,” came a measured response.  
“But–”  
“ _Qunari_ is not a race,” Fenris explained quietly, “it’s a religion or, rather, an ideology those who are of the Qun follow.”  
“And the tal-vashoth?” Hawke prompted.  
“–are their version of heretics.”  
“Is it possible that Seamus was taken by these–” Hawke made a vague gesture in the tal-vashoth’s general direction, “– _not-really-qunari_? The witness would hardly know one from the other, wouldn’t they?”  
“A fair point,” Varric agreed. “Maybe we should ask our helpful guide about it. Excuse me,” he raised his voice a bit, “have you been here for long? Did anyone else pass through here sometime yesterday morning? A lone dark-haired human, perhaps?”  
“No-one came for the last three days. There was a caravan, but its leader heeded my warnings and turned to find an alternative route.”  
“That doesn’t prove anything, unfortunately,” the dwarf sighed, “this may not be the only trail the tal-vashoth stake out – simply the only one with a portent of doom.”  
“Wait!” Hawk frowned thoughtfully. “Didn’t that dwarf, Javaris, tell us something about qunari bandits that were bothering the Arishok?”  
“He did. But if you remember, I advised you against accepting his deal, and I still think it sounds fishy.”  
“It seems we’ll be cleaning them out anyway,” the fereldan shrugged, “might as well kill two nugs with one stone. I wonder–” he turned to the tal-vashoth and, judging by the momentary pause, tried to come up with a respectable form of address before abandoning it as a lost cause, “– why warn the passers-by at all?”  
“It is not right, what the others of my kind are doing. They have left the Qun, but they do not know how to be outside of it, so they kill because that is the only thing that they know how to do.”  
“If you think it’s wrong, why not do anything about it?”  
“I _am_ doing something.”  
Fenris thought it quite reasonable that a single warrior would not rush to engage a whole band, no matter his moral high ground (although the elf had some suspicion about what Hawke would have chosen in a similar situation – the fereldan had a way of getting impossible things done when he felt strongly enough about them). Hawke’s next question, however, was completely unexpected.  
“Are you, perhaps, simply not fond of fighting?”  
“Do you aim to insult me, basra?” Ah, and it seemed that the perceived insult had found its mark.  
“No,” drawn out vowel turned the word in a question. Hawke was frowning, as if he could not see even a hint of offence in his words. “There is no shame in it. I myself generally prefer non-violent solutions.”  
“And yet you plan to go forth and fight,” the tal-vashoth objected.  
“I have certain obligations I must fulfill. You, I presume, have none.”  
“That is indeed the meaning of being tal-vashoth,” he replied ponderingly. “You have given me food for thought,” and, without bothering with any social niceties, the horned giant stepped back, once again merging into the backdrop of shady mountainside.   
“What was that all about?” Bethany huffed. “I thought you were going to ask him to fight with us, since he’d obviously disapproved of those other qunari.”  
“I was,” Hawke agreed and resumed walking, although more slowly and cautiously than before. “but there was just something about him… When he was telling us that other tal-vashoth knew nothing but killing, I’d got the impression that he was speaking about himself as well,” inexplicably, he turned a questioning gaze towards Fenris, who needed a couple of moments to grasp that Hawke was seeking some sort of confirmation of his guess.  
“Well,” the elf mused, “if he had been a warrior, fighting was literally the only thing that he did in his life.”  
“If so, then I doubt he was _afraid_ to attack the others, and yet he chose to warn the travelers instead, as if he didn’t _want_ to fight. So I just asked,” Hawke shrugged. “I can reason it out now, but really, it was mostly a hunch.”  
 _A hunch_. Fenris remembered the time when he was left on Seheron by his master, alone for the first time in his memory, cast adrift without purpose and with no means of finding it. If not for the Fog Warriors, who’d shown him how to make choices for himself, he was not sure he’d be able to survive at all. The tal-vashoth, who had just escaped a lifelong slavery of the Qun, must have been facing the exact same thing, and yet Fenris did not recognize the similarity until now. Terrance Hawke was quite a fascinating man, capable of great empathy as well as understanding.  
Strange, how this trait coexisted with his ability to sometimes pass harsh judgment on the matters of others’ life or death.

Spears flying form behind the rocks surrounding the trail were a clear indication that no amount of fast talking would set the other tal-vashoth on a peaceful path in life. They were some of the best fighters Fenris had met since entering Kirkwall, very obviously trained to fight as a cohesive unit, and just as obviously not doubting their place in a natural order of things. There was a couple of moments when he thought strategic retreat would have been the best course of action – especially when they had entered the caves that the tal-vashoth dwelled in and encountered not only ordinary reinforcements but a saarebas as well – but Hawke was resolutely cutting his way through the enemy, and the others had no choice but to follow his lead.   
Of course, their group had their own tricks. The swordsmen hemmed the enemy in so Bethany could let loose a wide-ranged elemental attack, while Varric guarded all their backs with preternaturally accurate shots. Unfortunately, the appearance of a qunari mage shifted the balance of power.  
Hawke cried out in surprise and pain when a wave of force and electricity slammed him into a wall. “Bethany, do something about it!” he demanded though a coughing fit.  
“ _You_ do something about these stupid spears!”   
Cutting his own opponent down with a diagonal slash over unprotected chest, Fenris hurried over to the mage. Qunari warriors were trained to deal with all kinds of threats – now four of them were throwing spears at Bethany, forcing her to concentrate on shielding and interrupting all attempts at offence. Varric was busy with his own group of assailants who tried to get to the wooden platform he’d chosen as a vantage point, so it was up to the elf to help their heavy-hitter.  
He rushed the tal-vashoth, surprising them with the speed and ferocity of his attacks, and jumped back just as quickly at the first sign of brewing magic. Bethany’s staff moved in a wide arc, creating a palisade of ice needles in its wake, either freezing or impaling its victims; and almost in the same breath the apostate cast a _crushing prison_ spell on the saarebas, leaving him in a crumpled heap where he stood only a moment before over a still dazed Hawke.  
Fenris took an involuntary step back. Most of the time he managed to willfully forget about the powers the younger Hawke had at her disposal, but in the moments like these he was forcefully reminded of them and couldn’t help but question his own foolishness. Was there really only concern for her brother written all over Bethany’s face, of was she secretly reveling in her ability to destroy with a single sweep of hand? How stupid was he to trust his life – no, to protect _her_ with his life! – when she could just as easily turn her magic on him?  
“Are you all right?” His appalled musings were suddenly interrupted by Hawke, who came up to him unnoticed. The worry in his face was too great for the meager bruises and scratches Fenris acquired during the fight, and what was even more strange, he didn’t immediately rush to help Bethany and Varric with the last tal-vashoth.  
“Of course,” Fenris answered, frowning at the gauntlet-covered hand hovering over his chest.  
“I could’ve sworn I saw a spear go right though you,” Hawke muttered, perplexed.  
Fenris chuckled. “It did. Several of them, in fact.” His lyrium markings briefly flared to life, a reflexive response to the memory of danger. “If I can make my hand pass though solid objects, then in stands to reason that I can make myself be passed through by solid objects as well.”  
“That is–” Hawke shook his head with a bewildered smile, “–a very weird grammatical construction, and an amazing ability all at once.”  
Fenris’s lips quirked in response. He was never sure what to feel when someone commented on his ill-begotten powers; they were, without a doubt, very useful in a fight, but thinking of them unfailingly tugged at some of the worst memories of his life. It was truly fortunate that in the heat of a fight he called upon lyrium embedded in his skin by instinct and not though a conscious effort – Maker only knew how often he would have hesitated otherwise.  
Their silent contemplation was interrupted before Fenris could come up with an appropriate – or indeed, any at all – answer to Hawke’s observation.  
Bethany, having helped Varric dispose of the last attackers, returned to Hawke’s side to fussily check on his injuries. Her worry, not coincidentally, was much more founded than her brother’s; Terrance was definitely the most hurt of them all, having broken two ribs in his collision with the wall. It was not an unusual occurrence either: Hawke was always quick to engage the most dangerous foe, since he considered himself responsible for the wellbeing of those who followed him, no matter how willing those following were to risk their own lives. It was a source of unending frustration for Bethany, who had very little talent for healing and was therefore forced to rely on potions and poultices to help him with the consequences of his ‘foolhardy heroics’.  
“On the bright side,” came Varric’s voice, and Fenris only then noticed that the dwarf did not come back with the mage, “we are several sovereigns closer to our Deep Roads expedition. On the not so bright side, there is no trace of Seamus anywhere around the cave. Well, maybe I should put it on the bright side too, since these fellows don’t strike me as ransoming type.”  
Apparently, search for the elusive prince turned up only a stash of goods the tal-vashoth collected, which was not a bad compensation in Fenris’s opinion.   
“I wonder,” Hawke mused, “where one draws the line between practicality and marauding?”  
Fenris, who was carefully buckling his breastplate (that Bethany insisted he remove because she needed to check Hawke’s ribs and _of course_ Hawke couldn’t do it himself for fear of aggravating his injury), favored him with a crooked smile. “I would say it lies right between you looting someone else’s body and someone else looting yours.”  
Bethany frowned disapprovingly. “You two are so morbid!”  
“And the scary thing is–” Varric added, rejoining them, “–they almost seem to enjoy it.” Indeed, Hawke’s earlier question was not laced with regret, as could have been expected, but was more an expression of detached curiosity; Fenris’s words brought an answering appreciative smile to his lips.  
With a quiet _thank you_ after his armor was once again in order, Hawke put his sword on his shoulder and looked around the cave for the last time. “Well, now we’ve completed the task that we hadn’t even thought about, and we are still no closer to the one we’ve actually set out to do.”  
“Cheer up, brother! It’s not even noon yet.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ironically, in the end it had been very easy to find Seamus Dumar. The cape jutting out into the shallow waters of the Waking Sea was not what one could call a hideaway; Fenris remembered visiting it several times, and, judging by a ring of stones around a burned out patch of earth, it was often used as a campsite. So whoever had ‘abducted’ Seamus was not too keen on secrecy.  
In fact, on approach Hawke’s little group could clearly hear the clang of swords and creative cursing, meaning someone had already stumbled upon the ‘hostage’ and was actively trying to free him.  
“It appears we’ve been beaten by competition,” Varric stated dramatically (but quietly) when they came closer to scout out the situation from behind the bushes.  
“I would say,” Fenris observed with a derisive snort, “that our competition is well on the way of beating each other.” Indeed, after a closer look it became obvious that both fighting parties consisted largely of humans, and the elf was beginning to doubt that this skirmish had anything to do with the Viscount’s son at all. “Are you sure it’s actually competition and not some random gang infighting?”  
“Why, Elf, use your famed eyesight – there’s our runaway prince on the other side, right next to picturesque ruins.”  
Fenris rolled his eyes but refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t the slightest idea of how Seamus Dumar looked, so eyesight or not, he couldn’t have recognized him.  
“Those are Red Irons,” Bethany hissed from his left, convulsively squeezing her fingers on her staff.  
“And Nevarran Winters,” Varric added, too engrossed in the fight to notice her turmoil. “Seems they’re evenly matched and either side could benefit from a little outside help. You have ties to Meeran, if I recall correctly, but those Winters are such charming ladies that no-one will blame you for choosing them. So who shall it be, Hawke?”  
“The qunari.”  
“Why, yes, there is indeed a qunari here, thank you for noticing,” the dwarf mocked, “but I hardly think he is our greatest problem at the moment.”  
With a longsuffering sigh Hawke turned to Varric. “Do you know there is such a thing as too much wit?” he asked, a faint note of exasperation in his voice. “I’m saying we should help the qunari, since he appears to be the only one who’s interested in keeping Seamus alive at the moment.”  
The fight they were observing truly was quite absurd in Fenris’s opinion. Two bands were busy not only killing each other, but actively preventing any enterprising opponents from getting too close to the ‘prize’. That, unfortunately, didn’t mean that stray arrows and blasts of magic weren’t flying in dangerous proximity to the young man, who, judging by his cowering, was faced with this level of violence for the very first time in his sheltered life. The qunari, in contrast, was perfectly calm and collected, bodily protecting his ‘hostage’ from accidental hits.  
“He doesn’t look like a kidnapper, does he?” Bethany whispered doubtfully.  
“Well, he _could be_ protecting his future investment…” Hawke suggested, although his tone was a clear enough indication that he was not seriously entertaining that theory. “Anyway, our priority is Seamus. Luckily for us, the competition is too distracted with each other to notice anyone else, so we will use this to our advantage. Varric, Bethany, get as many as you can with spells and arrows, just don’t let them see you. Fenris and I will try to get as close as we can to the prince. Break cover only if a life is at stake.”  
Everybody nodded their understanding.  
“Bethany,” Hawke added much quieter, putting a hand on her shoulder, “are you all right with fighting the Irons?”  
“Yes,” she answered bravely. “Meeran is a bastard of a first order; I certainly won’t shed any tears over him.” But her eyes shifted nervously over the battlefield, as if looking for something. Fenris remembered that killing someone she had known before was one of her fears; and of course her brother must’ve been aware of that too.  
“Just knock them out if you can; a couple of nightmares and a headache should be ample punishment for this stupidity.” Hawke squeezed her shoulder in encouragement and then nodded to Fenris, signaling that they should get moving.  
The elf wondered briefly if he ever had a family; a sibling? Did they know him enough to understand his worries without him saying anything? Did they go out of their way to alleviate them? But mostly he was just envious because whatever had been in his past, it was now lost to the pain of Danarius’s cruel experiment together with every single memory that could have given him comfort.

Their position, when they came to a halt, was far from ideal: they were crouching behind the remnants of a stone wall and while they could see everything that happened to the prince perfectly well the distance was too great for swift action. If something were to happen they would inevitably loose several moments getting to Seamus’s side, which could very well be fatal in the chaos of a fight.  
And as it always happened in unfavorable situations where one had to rely on luck, the worst case scenario was all too happy to present itself.  
The course of the battle between ‘rescuers’ was suddenly tipped in Winters’ favor due to reinforcements, and a group of nevarrans wasted no time in moving to take the prince under their ‘protection’. Fenris was reasonably sure that Seamus wouldn’t have been hurt too badly anyway, but the qunari, who was still standing between him and the fighters and didn’t show any signs of abandoning his post had no protection of status. Moreover, _official_ version branded qunari as kidnappers, so there wouldn’t have been a reason to spare his life even if he was simply fishing nearby instead of swinging a sword around.  
The elf supposed it didn’t matter in the greater scheme of things whether Hawke wanted to prevent the murder or simply decided it was time to join the fray before they lost their tactical advantage. At his signal Fenris vaulted over the wall and attacked the closest foe, silently praying that Bethany and Varric would be able to cover their backs in the ensuing confusion.  
Winters didn’t have much time to curse insolent bastards who swooped in to grab the prize while honest people were at a disadvantage; they were not even that inventive in their swearing, having exhausted their creativity as well as their strength on Red Irons. Everything was over after only a couple of brief if chaotic minutes.  
Fenris turned to survey the battlefield. The first one he noticed – no doubt due to height – was Hawke, who was leaning on his sword and slightly favoring his side. Then the elf realized that in terms of size Hawke, although quite tall and wide-shouldered, still lost to the qunari, who should have been looming somewhere near, since both of them were intent on guarding Seamus. There was a further couple of seconds before the elf finally thought to lower his gaze, by which time he concluded that it was perhaps enough of fighting for one day (and maybe he should check with Bethany for signs of head trauma).  
Luckily, the qunari was their only casualty; Bethany was kneeling next to him and trying to administer some kind of first aid while Varric was busy gathering their fallen enemies’ donations for his Deep Roads expedition. The prince, who looked even paler and more frightened than before, sat trembling on the sand and looked at his unconscious ‘kidnapper’.  
“The wounds are shallow,” Bethany was saying without lifting her head, and probably addressing her brother more than Seamus, “but the blow to his head is worrying. Do you think we should glue his horn back?” Fenris came to a stop beside Hawke and looked over the fallen qunari. The slashes on his torso had been already tended to and smeared with healing salve; half of a horn that Bethany was fiddling with was obviously a consequence of the same blow that caused a sluggishly bleading wound on the side of his head.  
“Give it back!” Seamus suddenly came out of his stupor and lunged – or tried to, from his clumsy sprawl – for the horn. Bethany’s hands briefly sparkled with magic and Fenris noticed that Hawke’s hand tightened on the sword’s handle in reflex. Foolish prince brazenly ignored the signs of two warriors still twitchy after the day’s battles and continued indignantly: “Don’t mock him! Who are you? What’s going on here?”  
“Oh, just take it and calm down,” the younger Hawke snapped and threw the qunari horn at the prince, who managed to catch it after a little fumbling. Then she once more turned to her patient’s head wound and Fenris heard her muttering something along the lines of _ungrateful brat_ and _see if I help you the next time_ and, quite possibly, _no political marriage for you, serrah_.  
“My name is Terrance Hawke; these are my companions – Bethany, Fenris,” he nodded perfunctorily at each of them, but didn’t bother introducing Varric, who was still doing not very honorable things to ‘resting’ Winters and Red Irons – not that Seamus paid attention to anything other than the unconscious qunari. “As for your other question: you were declared missing and the Viscount set a reward for bringing you back.”  
“What?!” Seamus had the gall to sound genuinely surprised. There was some merit to Bethany calling him a brat – Fenris wasn’t a good judge of humans’ age, but this particular human appeared to be no older than Bethany herself, and his attitude was even less mature than that.  
“What?” Hawke repeated back. “Did you expect any other reaction to your disappearance?”  
Seamus huffed. “I thought he wouldn’t even notice – not like he remembers he even has a son most of the time, except for the times he feels the need to point out how very disappointed he is with my entire being.”  
Hawke started to open his mouth, but obviously stopped himself from saying the first (or several first) thoughts that came to his mind. Fenris doubted he would have had the same restraint; then again, he didn’t care for Seamus’s opinion, while it was at least somewhat important to the fereldan if he wanted to use the prince’s rescue as leverage in his future dealings with the Viscount. “As you can see, your absence was noticed and these are the consequences,” Hawke indicated the many bodies lying on the sand. “It is time you returned to the Keep, if you would accompany us back?”  
“I’m not going anywhere!” the prince – or _the brat_ , since that title suited him far better – declared vehemently. “I can’t leave Ashaad here! He’s wounded, and unprotected, and–” he trailed off, lifting a hand with the qunari’s horn still clutched in it.  
“The hornless qunari are generally considered powerful and fearsome,” Fenris observed, “so the loss will hardly trouble him.” Seamus lifted his eyes and did an obvious double-take, for the first time noticing the elf covered in strange markings (not to mention sweat, dust and specks of blood). _Yes, the brat obviously didn’t take too well to diplomacy_ , Fenris silently observed, irrelevantly remembering Hawke’s first reaction to seeing him, which was a lot less disgusted and a lot more admiring with a side of polite ogling (a contradiction quite in line with others that coexisted peacefully inside the fereldan). Actually, Hawke was looking at him now with much the same expression as that first time, which probably meant that he enjoyed how Fenris looked right after emerging victorious from a challenging battle. _That_ was definitely preferable to Seamus’s poorly masked disdain. “By the way,” the elf added with a hint of malicious satisfaction, “ _Ashaad_ is not his name, only a position he holds within the Antaam.”  
“Really?” the brat looked so sincerely disappointed that Fenris almost felt sorry for a moment, but then Seamus shook his head and insisted: “No matter; I’m not leaving!”  
“This Ashaad of yours is in more danger while you remain with him,” Hawke said reasonably. “He was hurt protecting you from your would be rescuers, was he not? What do you think will happen if you stubbornly stay by his side now? The reward is promised, and until the Viscount rescinds the offer, a lot of people will be looking for you; hardly any of them will bother with your companion’s life, especially since officially you were _kidnapped_ by qunari.”  
“Kidnapped?” Seamus yelped before once again diving head first into sulking. “But of course,” he muttered, “what else could have happened? It’s not as if anyone would genuinely _want_ my company…” Personally, Fenris couldn’t imagine that anyone would, with an attitude like that, but once again kept his silence. “Was I kidnapped for political gain?”  
“You _are_ the Viscount’s son,” Hawke answered, less playing along with Seamus’s self-pity fest, and more simply stating the fact.  
“Yes, that’s all that anyone sees,” the brat spat bitterly. “Ashaad never cared for titles,” he added with so much anguish Fenris couldn’t help but think in was at least partially playing for the audience, “finally I was simply Seamus for someone.”  
“And this someone will still be around if you go home now and stop making him a target for all the future ‘rescuers’”.  
Bethany, meanwhile, finished dressing Ashaad’s head wound and feeding potions down his unresisting throat. “We can hide him in the bushes,” she suggested uncertainly. “Hopefully, he will wake up in a couple of hours, by which time we’ll be back in Kirkwall and the Viscount will call off the search. Brother is right, everyone’s attention is focused on you now; a single qunari hidden in the shrubs will pass completely unnoticed.”  
Seamus shifted his eyes from the unmoving gray figure to the horn and back again. He appeared to be thinking hard, and Fenris hoped he’d come to the only right decision. Otherwise they would have to resort to force and deliver him to his father’s doorstep kicking and screaming – or maybe bound and gagged.  
“You are probably right,” Seamus conceded, reluctantly rising from the sand. “If I have no other choice but to return, then I guess I prefer be taken back by the ones who actually care at least a little.”  
“A fine endorsement,” Bethany muttered, not quite low enough to not be heard. Hawke sighed. “Simply warn the Viscount the next time you decide to go on vacation,” he suggested mildly.  
“If only in was so easy,” the brat said mournfully. “He already disapproves of qunari – every other word out of his mouth is about how bad it is for the city that a whole fleet of them got shipwrecked near our shores. He doesn’t even try to know them better; can you imagine what he will say if I were to announce that I prefer spending time with one of them to doing my duties?”  
“It is my belief that two reasonable people can always come to a compromise,” Hawke answered with studied neutrality. Fenris smiled to himself, impressed anew by his effortless ability to play with words. They were reassuring on the surface, but could be interpreted as reproach just as easily.  
Seamus seemed to take them as a former, smiling uncertainly at the warrior. “Then let us hope that father can see reason,” he concluded (Hawke’s eyes narrowed slightly, betraying his displeasure – so, his previous words were more of a reproach then). “I am ready to go.”

But of course, before going he insisted on personally overseeing the process of hiding the qunari behind the same low wall that Hawke and Fenris used as a cover; he even offered his help, to Bethany’s skeptical huff and Hawke’s calm refusal. And he also insisted that a healing potion should be left near the qunari in lieu of reassurance. “No-one else would have reason to do this,” Seamus explained, “so Ashaad will know that I am unharmed and left here of my own free will.” Which, Fenris admitted, was a surprisingly well thought-out idea from a whiny brat.  
When they finally were on their way back to Kirkwall, with Seamus pestering Bethany about his qunari’s health and Varric joining them to introduce himself and distract the prince in his usual manner with a sufficiently humorous and unbelievable tale, Hawke pulled back and walked with a decidedly gloomy expression, frowning deeper every time his gaze fell on Seamus’s back. The behavior was too irregular for a man unperturbed by mages, templars, criminals and idiots alike, so after a few minutes Fenris let his curiosity get the better of him.  
“Is something the matter?” he asked quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you take such an obvious dislike to a generally harmless person.” The fereldan looked at him sideways, and a smile ghosted over his lips.  
“He just reminds me of some–” Hawke almost unnoticeably stumbled over the word, “– things that I would prefer not to dwell upon for too long. I don’t really know him and it would be wrong to let these parallels my mind had drawn influence my attitude, but letting go of them is harder than it should be.”  
The elf shook his head. “You are a strange man, Hawke.”  
“Why?” he was still frowning, but more in a calmly considering manner. “Would _you_ want yourself to be superimposed in my mind by an image of some other man? Come to think of it, Anders always insists of drawing everyone’s attention to the similarities between your situations, and there are indeed quite a lot of them to a casual observer.”  
“Do you aim to insult me?” Fenris bristled, unconsciously using the same turn of phrase they’d heard from a qunari not long before.  
“I aim only to make a point,” he countered. “My father taught me that I must not let the similarities obscure the differences, no matter how much easier it would be to ignore them and concentrate on things that are already familiar. Oh, well,” he sighed, “I do believe it’s a loosing battle in the prince’s case.”  
“Should we change of topic?” Fenris suggested. He did not know what exactly Hawke saw when he looked at Seamus, but if it disturbed him enough to sacrifice a fair bit of his usual diplomacy to make such ‘points’, the elf didn’t see any merit in prying further.  
“Yes, absolutely,” Hawke’s tone was quite relieved. “I was meaning to ask: it appears you know a great deal about qunari?”  
“I wouldn’t call it a _great_ deal,” the elf corrected, “but there are some things you inevitably pick up if you live near Par Vollen and Seheron.” Hawke nodded in understanding. Of course, in Ferelden qunari were a rarity and an enigma, but in Tevinter they were a long-time enemy that lived right next door – in some cases quite literally. “The qunari are not secretive per se, but most of those I’ve met are not qualified to explain the inner workings of their society – and in the Qun you do not do anything that you are not supposed to do. Thus, most of the things I know are the fruit of observation and conjecture.”  
“That is still better than nothing. I’m quite curious to know more: until today I thought about qunari as simply very tall, grey people with nothing more unusual about them than a pair of horns jutting from their heads,” the fereldan smiled self-deprecatingly.  
“Then allow me to rectify the situation,” Fenris stepped just a little bit closer to his companion and started to recount everything that he knew about qunari.  
There truly was not a lot of solid facts to share; although the qunari considered it their duty to ‘educate’ all their conquered territories in the ways of the Qun, this responsibility fell to their priesthood; meanwhile, the Tevinter Imperium dealt mostly with qunari warriors, who were intent on making everyone submit to the Qun through violence instead of philosophical debates. Fenris also hadn’t met any qunari artisans or scientists, although he knew of their existence from casual mentions.  
Hawke, predictably enough, was most fascinated with the ideology itself, asking for numerous clarifications of which Fenris could answer very little. When the elf ran out of relevant information, Hawke, in turn, told him about his run-in with Javaris, a dwarven merchant determined to trade with qunari for their completely lyrium-free explosives, who thought that the heads of tall-vashoth would sweeten the deal for the Arishok. They discussed the feasibility of it for a bit, finally concurring that it all hinged on what exactly the qunari leader promised – or didn’t promise, as it were – the dwarf.

Fenris was almost sad to see the stone walls of the city; he had enjoyed the time spent in quiet conversation even more than the excitement of previous fights and was now loath to end it and return to sharing Hawke’s attention with a myriad of other people and issues.  
“Oh, we’re here already,” the fereldan muttered, looking put out as well. “Damn, life in Kirkwall is so hectic I hardly remember a time when I stopped to have a not business-related conversation.”  
“Why don’t you come to my mansion some time?” Fenris surprised himself by suggesting. “I’ll break out some fine Tevinter vintage and I’m sure that between us we’ll manage to come up with a perfectly irrelevant topic of conversation.”  
Hawke’s answering smile was equal parts surprised and delighted. “That would be great! I’ll definitely hold you to that.”  
Seamus and his part of the entourage had already reached the gates and Bethany called out to her brother to hurry up. “Listen,” Hawke turned serious once more, “I don’t anticipate any more fighting on our way to the Keep, but would you tag along for a bit longer? I’ll be going to see Javaris and the Arishok after we hand Seamus over to the Viscount and I would appreciate your expertise in dealing with them.”  
Being asked for advice was a first for Fenris, and he would be lying if he denied feeling quite flattered. So, “Of course,” he answered promptly; and if there was a smug smile on his lips all the way to the Keep, he felt it was perfectly justified.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the last chapter, written much faster then I expected of myself.  
> I deliberately skipped Hawke's first meeting with the Arishok, although he will definitely get a part in future stories.

The concept of a social call was not entirely lost on Fenris, but he was more familiar with it from a peculiar point of view. Danarius had often entertained other magisters while Fenris was simply the part of that entertainment, and most of it was best forgotten along with the rest of his life as a slave.  
Anyway, the elf was reasonably sure that Free Marches didn’t share Tevinter’s views on recreational activities but had no knowledge of the alternatives; in light of this it was probably fortunate that Hawke seemed to have forgotten about his invitation to visit the mansion. It was definitely better than him coming over and Fenris awkwardly trying to think of something to do or say. He was quite content to speak with Terrance while running around Kirkwall and fighting all manner of criminals and creatures – in other words, in any situation that contained a goal and thus provided topics and opportunities for brief conversations – but simple social interaction still did not come easily to an escaped slave; that must have been glaringly obvious to anyone who met him, and especially Hawke, whose gaze was as sharp as his namesake’s.  
Yes, it was good that Hawke had yet to come for a promised visit.  
To be fair, they both hadn’t had a lot of free time to remember the invitation: Hawke was neck deep in helping Aveline uncover corruption inside the city guard, further ingratiating himself to the higher-ups of Kirkwall in the process, while Fenris took a couple of brief jobs on Varric’s recommendations. The dwarf even congratulated him on finally ‘emerging from his shell’, very dramatically almost cried over the fact that he’d be joining the big world of business and promised to carefully screen the clients he would be referring to the elf so as not to invite unnecessary trouble. So Fenris still met Hawke when some help was needed, but at the end of the day they were too tired for social interaction.  
Unfortunately, no amount of reasoning and justifications could prevent Fenris from listening in anticipation for the distinctive knock every single evening and feeling dejected when it didn’t come. The fully acknowledged stupidity of it all did not diminish neither expectation nor disappointment, and thus Fenris’s stash of alcohol was getting steadily smaller due to his habitual method of chasing away all doubts with wine. 

When the familiar rhythm was tapped out on his door in the wee hours of the morning, Fenris was already awake, having slept fitfully after his nightly worries. The timing seemed a bit strange, but no altogether unreasonable, so the elf was ready to join Hawke on a new adventure – right to the moment when the fereldan actually appeared in the doorway.  
Hawke was clad in a light armor, which was not his usual choice and clashed with his trusty greatsword strapped to his back; he also looked as if he had already fought his daily quota of the battles and was more then ready to retire for the night – or for the day, as the case may be.  
“What in the Maker’s name happened to you?” Fenris demanded, forgoing social niceties.  
Hawke smiled wryly. “It can’t be that bad, can it?” he asked. “Rest assured, I don’t need any immediate help,” he added, making a beeline for a wide bench that was collecting dust near the generally unused fireplace, “I simply felt that I deserve some reward after the night I just had. You don’t mind, do you?”  
In spite of the questioning nature of his words, Hawke was apparently confident in Fenris’s agreement, because he lost no time in putting his sword down and sprawling along the bench while turning a folded leather cap into a pillow and using the piece of cloth he covered his shaved head with to prevent chafing as an added cushioning.  
“Let me get this straight,” the elf muttered, bemused. “You think that my company can improve your previously unpleasant night?”  
“If anything can at all,” Hawke’s easy agreement went a long way to alleviate any annoyance at the sudden invasion of his home. Fenris felt equal parts flattered and curious, but unsure if he should ask further questions – the fereldan looked like he really needed his rest. “Do you need anything?” he finally asked hesitantly.  
“No, no, it’s fine,” Hawke inexplicably sat back up and frowned. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. I probably shouldn’t have come to bother you so early,” he looked and sounded as if he was having second thoughts about the whole visit which was not at all what Fenris wanted.  
“You’re not bothering me,” he stated firmly. “Sit back down; you can compensate all my supposed inconvenience by telling me what happened.”  
“Hmm, I guess that’s fair,” Hawke conceded, once again lowering himself on the bench. “The story should be good for a laugh at least.”  
Fenris hmm’ed noncommittally, still observing his guest. Hawke looked tired and a kind thing to do would have been to just let him sleep his adventures off. But surely he hadn’t trekked all the way to Hightown in search of a cushier bench to rest on? Hawke also sounded entirely awake and there was an undercurrent of nervous energy that Fenris rarely observed in a normally calm human.  
Deciding to take Hawke’s acceptance of the ‘deal’ at face value, Fenris turned to more practical matters. There was at least one thing he was sure any good host should do for a worn out guest: Fenris snagged a tray with the remnants of yesterday’s supper (that also dubbed as today’s breakfast) and put it on the edge of the table closest to the bench. It wasn’t much of a meal – only bread, cheese and smoked meat – but neither of them was a picky eater anyway.  
“Thank you,” Hawke said with sincere gratitude, his smile turning mischievous only moment later, “but I also seem to remember being promised wine.”  
At this reminder of his invitation Fenris suddenly felt unsure of himself. What was the etiquette for these kinds of situations? Hawke didn’t look like he expected something extraordinary or minded the lack of… anything, really… but what could he be thinking about an elf who couldn’t even scrape up a decent meal for an invited guest?  
Well, a promise was a promise. The late tevinter merchant’s collection was truly superb, and Fenris always had a couple of bottles in easy reach. Quality of wine was probably the only thing he had no reason to be ashamed of: the vintages he now owned would pass muster at any hightown party.  
“Magister’s tears,” he announced, hiding the feeling of inadequacy behind smug appreciation. “Light and fruity, with a slightly bitter aftertaste.” But then, glancing from the newly opened bottle to Hawke, he noticed that even in this he had managed to overlook one vital detail. “I don’t suppose you’ll agree to drink straight from the bottle?”  
“Your house, your rules,” Hawke answered, still smiling a bit. To Fenris’s relief it was not a mocking smile; in fact, it somehow managed to once again put the elf at ease.  
“I’ll go find you a goblet,” he laughed. “Meanwhile, help yourself,” he nodded at the tray.

After the nearby chambers were searched for the missing tableware and Hawke made appropriate noises over the excellent quality of the wine, it was finally time for storytelling.  
“It all started innocently enough with Bethany proclaiming she wanted to have a ‘girls’ night out’, as she charmingly put it,” Hawke started between the bites of his impromptu sandwich. “I had no objection in theory, but had no other choice but to chaperone the thing.”  
“Isn’t Bethany a bit too old for that?” Fenris asked skeptically.  
“Let’s see,” Terrance started ticking off fingers, “we’re talking about a young mage who can loose all sense after a few pints, accompanied by another mage who doesn’t have all that much sense even when sober and a pirate who will gladly encourage them both in any idiocy they’d decide to engage in. One reckless spell, and my sister goes to the Gallows. So yes, they obviously needed a chaperone.”  
“Good point,” Fenris conceded, but then, remembering Bethany’s chosen term, asked: “What about Aveline?”  
“Ah, Aveline. If she could’ve stayed for the whole night I wouldn’t worry. But in the wake of previous Guard-Captain’s dishonorable discharge all the responsibility landed on her shoulders, so she had to leave almost as soon as she got to _The Hanged Man_. It’s good that we at least had time to toast her installment as Jeven’s successor - pending a lot of additional training and paper-pushing, of course.”  
“So,” Fenris prompted when Hawke grew silent, “you went spying on your sister,”  
“I wasn’t spying! Bethany knew I would follow her. I was actually made to ‘be useful for something’ and carry her staff for emergencies.”  
“Didn’t you say that your purpose was to _prevent_ spellcasting?”  
“True. But she feels more comfortable with it nearby and it isn’t such a terrible burden for me either.”  
Fenris shook his head disapprovingly. He remembered the ingenious way the Hawke siblings concealed the mage’s staff: within the city walls Terrance carried it next to his greatsword and some clever medallion made it so that for an inattentive observer they looked like one. And even if the Hawkes were caught with it by some sharp-eyed templar it was not hard to convince them it was just part of the loot, since the Circle paid a lot of coin for any staff nowadays.  
“I’m guessing the night’s libations didn’t end with passing out from too much cheap alcohol on _The Hanged Man_ ’s floor.”  
“If only,” Hawke sighed mournfully. “After drinking enough to stop walking straight and start giggling at anything and everything they decided that fresh air will help clear their heads. I’m still unclear how we ended up in the docks,” he frowned thoughtfully. “That was probably the result to diving into every bar they’d passed by on their ‘promenade’, taking another couple of shots and asking for directions to the next watering hole.”  
“Following three drunk girls around for the whole night must’ve been a terrible hardship,” Fenris muttered in a tone of gentle understanding, although a blooming bruise on Hawke’s temple that didn’t escape his attention indicated that something less innocent than drunken wandering had taken place.  
“You know, I could almost miss the sarcasm in your voice,” Hawke commented after sipping his wine, “but that mocking smile gives you away.” Fenris promptly arranged his face in an innocently attentive expression. “No, no, that’s all right,” the fereldan dismissed with a wave of a hand, “you can laugh if you want. I think I now know all the worst joints in Kirkwall; and the saddest thing is I was entirely sober for the tour.” Fenris couldn’t help chuckling at this regretful proclamation. Meanwhile, Hawke continued his story.  
“It looked like the girls were ready to call it a night when they stumbled upon a chantry sister. She was trying to find someone to help her with something.”  
“In the docks? At night?”  
“Yeah,” he drawled. “Actually, there is no shortage of assistance in the docks at night, only not the kind a sister might need.” Fenris had a sudden flash of realization that while Bethany, Merrill and Isabela had been drunkenly stumbling around Hawke was busy scaring off all the crooks who might have thought them easy prey. “While the girls were laughing about chances of finding something other than an early death the sister ended up in an alley with some shady characters, and Bethany just _had to_ save her. Incidentally, both she and Merrill found it extremely funny that a chantry sister need the help of a pair of apostates.”  
“What were _you_ doing at the time?” Fenris asked, wondering at the absurdity and danger of the situation, and also filling up Hawke’s goblet, since the fereldan was enthusiastically compensating himself for his earlier abstinence.  
“Standing around the corner holding onto Bethany’s staff and being very glad that I was not involved in a fight alongside two drunken mages.” The elf snorted despite himself. Rationally, he couldn’t approve of such reckless disregard of everyone’s safety, but Hawke had apparently trusted his sister to have enough restraint even in her inebriated state, and he was not a man prone to taking unwarranted risks.  
“The sister was properly grateful and didn’t seem in the least disturbed by use of magic,” Hawke went on, “and she somehow convinced the girls to come help her with that mysterious thing she so desperately needed done.”  
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic about it.”  
“Would you, if you were in my place?” he asked rhetorically, since it was quite obvious that Fenris would not be caught dead within a mile of a place like that. “I thought it was fishy, but the sister was taking us to the old foundry district which was close to the Alianage and our own home, so I thought we’d at least be going in the right direction.”  
Fenris noticed that Terrance didn’t mention _The Hanged Man_ , which meant he didn’t care how _Isabela_ would return ‘home’, but it was probably less due to his personal feelings and more because among the three women the pirate was best at taking care of herself in hairy situations.  
“Then I noticed a man following them in the shadows.”  
“Oh? Was it another _chaperone_?” Fenris asked snidely.  
“As it happens, it was,” Hawke smirked, “although at first I thought that all of it was an elaborate setup for something even more nasty than robbery or murder. So I stepped in.”  
“That must have been a surprise.”  
“M-hm, literally for everyone involved; by that time even the girls managed to completely forget about me.”  
“If not a trap, then what was it?”  
Hawke once again sighed mournfully in reply. “The sister did some fast talking, naming the stalker as ser Varnel, the only templar righteous and devout enough to stand by her in her noble plight, which we still knew nothing about at the time. When I pointed that fact out, she all but begged me to come along to her hideout where she would be able to properly explain her quandary. I refused.”  
“You refused,” Fenris repeated with obvious doubt.  
“I fully intended to refuse,” Hawke corrected himself with a rueful smile, “but then Bethany got all teary eyed and asked me to let her do this because she had agreed already and all she wants is to be like her brother who never goes back on a given word.”  
“Well played,” the elf praised, shaking his head in amusement. It was true though, Hawke was very careful with his words but never broke his promises, once given.  
“You think that was manipulation? Trust me, after eighteen years together I have no problems telling when she’s sincere. It’s almost cute that she wants to be like me, but I would have appreciated it more if she chose to emulate some other trait first – discretion, for example.”  
“Speaking of, I can see how Bethany and even Merrill can fixate on helping some damsel in distress, but I can’t imagine Isabela going along with it.”  
“Yes, Isabela would have been a great ally, but the sister had promised a generous reward very early on, so Isabela was very much on board with the adventure. Thus outnumbered and outmaneuvered, I had to admit defeat and hope that the actual deed would be so dangerous, ridiculous or both that they would finally see sense.” Hawke put his goblet aside and thunked his head on a tabletop. “I should have invited you along,” he lamented, “you certainly wouldn’t have let me delude myself into complacency.”  
Fenris looked at the crown of his head with faint amusement. “Since when am I the paragon of reason?”  
“Your disapproval would have been a perfect counterbalance to Bethany’s puppy eyes,” the fereldan answered, lifting his head and smiling cheekily. “But since you weren’t there I had no other option. Unfortunately, all my hopes of ending this before it actually begun died upon entering the sister’s hideout.” Hawke’s expression turned serious, and Fenris felt himself tense in response. Despite the light-heartedness of previous narration, at the back of his mind the elf always thought that Hawke wouldn’t have come to him at such a strange time without grave reason, and he felt that they had finally gotten to it.  
“She had a qunari mage stashed away there,” Hawke continued, “all swaddled in chains, in a mask, with sawn off horns and his mouth sewn shut.” He frowned thoughtfully. “A rather disturbing sight up close. It’s a bit strange that I hadn’t paid enough attention when we fought that tal-vashoth to notice any of the… _adornments_ ,” he spat in distaste, probably because his mind automatically fit all those restraints on his own dearly beloved mage (Fenris’s certainly did).  
“An unexpected twist,” the elf commented, aiming to lighten up a suddenly gloomy silence, “Varric would be ever so disappointed that he missed all the storytelling.” That earned him a crooked smile which he was proud to see. “I imagine the sister found a saarebas by accident?”  
“That’s what she said and that was the only thing I had not doubted about her story: if she had had enough men to take the mage by force she definitely wouldn’t need any to help her set him free.”  
“Set him free?” Fenris repeated, incredulous.  
“Imagine that. She claimed that she couldn’t abide the cruelty of it all and wanted to give the creature a chance, so she planned to smuggle him though the tunnels to the Wounded Coast – the farther from the qunari the better. It _still_ sounded fishy, but the girls – even Isabela – immediately started cooing over the _poor tortured soul_ and promising him freedom and future happiness. Well, Isabela took a moment to demand half of the promised payment up front before returning to-” Hawke shook his head, “-well, she was more ogling than pitying him, actually.”  
“I can certainly believe _that_ ,” Fenris smirked.  
“Anyway, off we went along some ancient smuggling tunnel – which, come to think of it, was the only unquestionably useful thing among all the night’s events, since now I know of at least one inconspicuous way in and out of the city – and, of course, we just had to run into some gang that took exception to the qunari. Luckily, all that walking around managed to sober our mages up although I was still a bit worried about the ceiling crashing down and burying us all after the saarebas decided to join the fray. Those guys pack a serous punch,” he patted his recently healed ribs reflexively, “but their communication skills are lacking just as seriously. I mean, they don’t talk, obviously, but they could at least nod or shake their heads in answer to simple questions.”  
Fenris had never had a chance to meet a saarebas in a non-battle setting, so he couldn’t shed any light on their inability to respond. He couldn’t even say that he was curious about it – the qunari’s take on containing dangers of magic was probably the only thing he agreed with wholeheartedly out of all their twisted ideology. (There was another unwelcome flash of Bethany in massive chains and ungainly collar on a delicate neck that was far less satisfying than an occasional past image of Danarius in a similar state, but Fenris dismissed it as irrelevant).  
“I think I’m drunk,” Hawke said apropos of nothing, jolting the elf out of his vaguely disturbing thoughts.  
“You don’t sound drunk,” he answered doubtfully.  
“It’s a gift,” the fereldan boasted, “kind of like you never getting hungover. That’s my theory anyway.”  
“About you being drunk or me not getting hungover?” Fenris joked.  
“You, of course. It’s the only explanation of you staying in perfectly good health after drinking as much as you do – and I say it not as a reprimand but out of sheer envy.”  
“–and still sounding quite sober,” the elf continued for him, neither confirming nor denying the theory.  
“I can also still walk in a straight line and fight if I have to. It’s less about how I say things and more about _what_ things I say. Usually it takes a bit more to get me drunk, but all the excitement and an empty stomach conspire against me now. Your wine is excellent as always, by the way,” he added before emptying his goblet. Fenris shook his head in bemusement. Perhaps veering off topic could indeed be a sign of inebriation.  
“Should I get you something else to eat?” he suggested, once again thinking that his home – if you could even call it that – was barely passable as living space and was woefully underequipped for hosting guests.  
“Only if it’s in an arm-stretching distance,” Hawke shrugged, “otherwise, don’t bother, since I’ve come here primarily for your company and I wouldn’t want to lose that for something as petty as food.” There it was again, a matter-of-fact compliment that had Fenris chuckling to hide his embarrassment.  
“Finish your story, Hawke,” he ordered, summarily dismissing the words and his reaction to them.  
“As you wish,” the fereldan smiled. “There isn’t much left to tell. When we finally emerged on the coast it was already almost dawn, but the scenery was a bit tarnished by a horde of qunari camping right at the entrance of the tunnel. It was a small and more or less peaceful horde, all things considered, and its commander, who called himself Arvaarad or something like that, said he had no reason to fight us if we handed the saarebas over.”  
“But you didn’t.” Battling a karataam would’ve certainly been a crowning moment of an already hectic night.  
“I was…considering it?” Hawke half-asked half-stated. “On the one hand, we were clearly outnumbered, but on the other, neither Bethany nor Merrill would have just agreed to meekly return the saarebas after going to such pains to set him free. As a stalling tactics, I asked a couple of questions to get a better feel of my options and learned that even though no-one suspects us of abducting the saarebas in the first place, all of us must die anyway – preferably voluntarily – because we’ve spent time near an uncontained mage. Thus the burden of decision-making was lifted from my shoulders and the wrath of two mages very attached to their life and freedom was unleashed on the qunari.  
And it was all so pointless in the end!” he spat out suddenly. “There was… a thing Arvaarad used to bind the saarebas; and the idiot’s first words after I freed him with it were that he wanted to follow the demands of the Qun – meaning kill himself. Who even does that?” he demanded angrily. “Nothing I said made any impression on him!” his lips thinned into a disapproving line. “I killed in battle, I ended a life out of mercy, but I never just stood by when a person committed suicide for no good reason.” Fenris silently filled Hawke’s goblet once more and watched him drown the bitterness of death with sweet wine.  
“You know,” Hawke said, still sounding perfectly sober, “when we met the Arishok I thought that he was a reasonable man; he was so sincerely baffled and aggrieved by all the flaws of our society that I couldn’t help but believe that the Qun had been truly able to eradicate them for the qunari. I wanted to know more about the ideology that could accomplish that. But now…” he shook his head. “I cannot accept punishing a person for a crime they hadn’t committed, their punishment made all the more cruel because they are taught to believe that they don’t deserve pardon. While I watched the saarebas self-immolate, the only question that kept repeating in my head was _‘what else had they sacrificed to the Qun?’_ ” Hawke shuddered almost imperceptibly.  
“And then,” he continued after a pause, “Bethany was angry with me because I hadn’t managed to undo a lifetime of conditioning with a couple of phrases, Isabela was furious that the sister vanished from the hideout without paying the second half of the money; when we finally returned home mother was fretting, Gamlen was grumbling, Dwyn was barking and it was… it was just too much all at once, so I ran away here,” Hawke concluded in a rush, uncharacteristically keeping his gaze down. “I’m sorry,” he sighed, “the tale turned out to be not as funny as I promised.”  
Fenris knew it was not a time for jokes, even ones aimed at lifting the mood. He also felt that Hawke wouldn’t take kindly to any sort of reassurance (or at least he wouldn’t have, in Terrance’s place). So he only said “But it needed telling,” prompting Hawke to finally lift his eyes from the tabletop.  
“It was a relief,” he agreed. “Thank you.”  
In the following silence Fenris groped for something else to say; to show without showing that he understood Hawke’s desire to escape from everything for a little while. His guest interpreted his silence differently, though, and started to get up from the table.  
“I probably should be–”  
“You can sleep here,” Fenris interrupted hastily. “I mean, you’re tired and drunk, if your assessment is to be believed,” he amended, “you shouldn’t be walking around in your state when you can rest here just as easily.”  
“Maybe you’re right,” Hawke said uncertainly. “Your bench isn’t much narrower or harder than my pallet at Gamlen’s, but it has a definite advantage of being closer at the moment.”  
“ _Or_ you can go the less traditional route and use _the bed_.” Fenris rolled his eyes at Hawke’s politely scandalized look. “It’s not as if I’m needing it at the moment.”  
“ _Unfortunately_ ,” the fereldan muttered not quietly enough to not be caught by the elf’s sensitive ears. Fenris pretended not to hear it anyway.  
“The bed is through there,” he pointed instead, “although I’m afraid it hadn’t fared all that much better than the rest of he mansion.”  
He was expecting a reassurance of a witty response, so when Terrance looked seriously at him, smiled and said “You are a treasure,” Fenris was startled into speechlessness. Hawke got up from the bench, taking his sword from the floor, and walked to the bedroom door (some part of Fenris’s consciousness noted that he was slightly swaying and moving with exaggerated caution). “Don’t hesitate to boot me out if I’m still not awake come evening.”  
“Of course,” the elf managed in an approximation of a flippant tone. “Sleep well.”  
Long after Terrance fell asleep (Fenris checked on him, and spent an indecent amount of time watching him breathing calmly into Fenris’s pillow) he let himself forget about his anxieties and savor all the pleasant moments of the morning, the compliments and the inherent trust that came with Hawke choosing his home as refuge.  
All in all, he decided, that was not a total failure, as first experiences went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading; and special thanks to those who leave kudos - it definitely encouraged me to write faster.  
> I apologize for the mistakes left in the text – English isn’t my first language and I currently don’t have a beta to help me with it.
> 
> I hope to start the next story soon, so stay tuned.


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